Posted
by
Hemoson Monday December 01, 2003 @11:14AM
from the wham-you-hear-nothing dept.

CharonX writes "The Galileo project, an european alternative to the US based (and controlled) GPS system, recieved a severe setback today.
Under US pressure the EU has agreed to use transmission frequencies that could be easily disturbed or completely jammed by the US military. Since one of Galileo's main advantages had been being independent of goverment or military control, this is a severe setback. Read more here on Heise.de (German - ya might want to use the fish)" Some of the background on this had NATO being unhappy with some of the provisions of it as well - at the least military structure.

The argument, the european satellite navigation system Gallileo will make the europeans independent from the USA, seems to tumble. Tagesschau [one of the most serious Newsmagazines in Germany] reports, US military forces may disturb or completely jam the Galileo signal without furhter notice, similar to what they are doing already with the GPS-Signals in critical times.

But that is not enough for the americans. They demand to reduce the quality ofthe unencrypted Galileo signal, which the System sends in normal operation. If the USA will succeed with its demands, one of the main arguments for the european Navigationsystem - it's much higher precision compared to GPS - would fall. The final decision talks are set for january in Washington D.C.

About four billion Euro will the Galilep project cost and it will start in the year 2008. About 30 satellites are required for the system. China and India also want to take part in financing the project with togehter 500 million euro.

Funny, but the Reg. article (link in another post)gives a distinctly different impression on the "jamming" issue, to wit:

The US and EU are currently coordinating frequencies so that the EU system doesn't interfere with the US system - and vice-versa. As a side effect, the EU system will be susceptible to jamming ONLY in that, being on a different freq., the US could jam Gallileo and not GPS.

Well, guess what - that implies that the EU could jam GPS and not Gallileo! Oh yeah, and even if Gallileo is on the same freq. as GPS, it could STILL be jammed - it would just take out both systems. AND accuracy would still suck due to interference.

As for the "demand" that the US military be able to degrade Gallileo's accuracy, given the breathless nature of the balance of the article, it seems the author may have gotten a little carried away.

Because the USA has a bigger army and is actively trying to stop us from making a common army of our own. I have to admit, I hate the idea of losing our national independence, but if we have to lose it, I'd rather lose it to Bryssel than to Washington... Meaning, I'm starting to wonder if the idea of making EU a real nation actually has merit...

But this 1M accuracy is needed : for exemple to locate on which side of a highway there's been an accident.
Yeah, terrorists can use this system ? But medics too. And i bet that more lifes will be saved by this system than lost by 'bad guys' who will anyway make whatever is necessary to be harmful.
After all, more people die every year because of car accidents than by terrorism and nobody started a 'war on car'...

This defeats the whole point of an independent system. The U.S. may be the superpower at this time, but this doesn't mean they should have such a strong hand in these decisions. If such a system eventually gets built and many years down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep? In a word, this is unfair. Other states should have the capabilities which the United States takes for granted. Very disappointed in my country.

i wonder though.. the financing of this has to shake somewhat now though, since the whole point of making the system kind of falls now, i don't see any point why china for example would like to contribute at all now.

It's interesting that you take notice of the financing for this project. I sometimes wonder if this isn't just another attempt by the U.S. to undermine the value of the EURO against the US Dollar. They're doing it in Iraq with OPEC, and they see no reason to stop there.

down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep? In a word, this is unfair.

You're worried about one side having an unfair advantage in war? That's just weird, man. There's no "fairness" in war. The US dictating to the EU how their nav sats should work, that's pretty lame. But the EU will be even more lame if they knuckle under.

Basically, the US is pointing out that the Galileo system is a dual-use civilian/military system. If it is used by an enemy the US might be forced to take it out. Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

Basically, the USA wants to make sure that only first-world nations can fight using high-tech weapons. They don't want two-bit dictators to have the same capabilities. If the chinese launch their own system the USA will live with it, since the USA could always shoot it down if they got into a big war with China. You can bet the Chinese would be looking to shoot down the GPS system if they got into a war.

There would actually be a long-term use for a navigation system which is completely low-resolution. In theory nobody would bother to shoot it down, and it might be the only system that survives a big war.

Galileo is analagous to a contractor who sells ultra-modern naval cruisers to anyone willing to pay for them. In a war, everybody would be looking to blow them up. Actually, even in peace there would be a large effort to control their activities. Big countries spend a lot of money to get a technological advantage in war - selling products to anyone willing to pay for them levels the playing field.

Basically, the US is pointing out that the Galileo system is a dual-use civilian/military system. If it is used by an enemy the US might be forced to take it out. Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

Fair enough, but being a non-USA solution, the keys to reducing its effectivness should not be in the hand of the US miltary. Rather, it should be in the hand of the countries who a responsible for putting together the Galileo system. The only way to have balance of power is two have sides, since otherwise there is no balance.

Then again the country that is likely to have the advantage, in a future war, is the one that is capable of working in the absence of electronic devices. You take one neutron bomb or a system capable of multifrequency jamming, and all electronic communications are worthless.

Basically, the USA wants to make sure that only first-world nations can fight using high-tech weapons. They don't want two-bit dictators to have the same capabilities.

No, the USA wants to make sure that the USA has control over all high tech weapons. With the current fascist and religious fundementalist currents in US politics, this is something that should have the world really worried.

Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

Then the EU should have the option of disabling the system at the EU's choice. If the US decides to shoot the system down against the wishes of the EU, that would be an act of war by the US against the EU. Shooting down another democracy's satellites for domestic US political or military purposes and against the wishes of that democracy would be a useful indicator of when the US really has crossed the line to being a rogue nation.

I did NOT specifically talk about Bush. I did NOT say that "the US was already firmly in the grip of fascists and fundamentalists". I said that there were "fascist and religious fundamentalist currents in US politics".

Whether the US will become a rogue nation remains to be seen; it's not the most likely outcome, but it has become probable enough that other nations shouldn't blindly trust the US. Politically moderate, bumbling wimps like Bush are probably not the biggest threat to US democracy; right wi

Galileo is analagous to a contractor who sells ultra-modern naval cruisers to anyone willing to pay for them. In a war, everybody would be looking to blow them up. Actually, even in peace there would be a large effort to control their activities. Big countries spend a lot of money to get a technological advantage in war - selling products to anyone willing to pay for them levels the playing field.

And the USA is analagous to a monopolistic software corporation that keeps bitching and moaning and trying t

No, he's making a valid point. If the Europeans want to put up a satellite system that anyone can use for military purposes, then the US might very well be forced to shoot it down in the event of war with anyone who uses it (European or not). They probably wouldn't like that, so they're getting the opportuntity in-advance to prevent it.

Several countries would love to try him (he probably has good defence devices, and he absolutely, just as you, me, and your typical Guantanamo guest, is entitled to a competent defence, but he certainly has some explanation to do over his carreer. And he gets angry real real fast (I witnessed that during a live interview) when someone just begins to hint at Cambodia or Indonesia).

No, it's because the French and the Britishare the only EU nations with nukes, and theBritish are our pet poodles. That means thatFrance is the seed from which a future nuclearsuperpower Europe will grow. The U.S. wantsto remain the worlds only superpower. Chinaand Europe are the only threats to thatstatus. Therefore, PRC and France are theonly real enemies of the U.S.

You will note that the GPS system is designed so that the US government can degrade its capability if it should be used by an enemy. Since most of the EU is part of NATO and generally aligned with US interests, it is likely that if the EU actually went to war with anyone the US would be more than happy to turn off the civilian GPS system in the war zone.

The USA is simply asking that the European system be designed with the same safeguards as the GPS system.

I agree. Other countries should have the capabilities that we have... so build them! Of course we pressured them to make their system weak! It's like us telling you to make your governments encryption systems vulnerable to we can read your official's email...

what blows my mind is that countries actually give in and do this! Can't another country simply give us the finger once and a while and do their own god damned thing without bitching about us and our international policys?

If such a system eventually gets built and many years down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep?

I'm aware enough of international law to know that it's really just a collection of treaties and customs.

But I like to keep an open mind and welcome any opportunity to gain knowledge in this area. You seem like a reasonable fellow. Please enlighten me as to the articles of International Law that would be violated by destroying or jamming a GPS system owned and operated by an international non-governmental organization.

The term "act of war" is pretty much obsolete in modern international law, but in any case providing guidance signals for munuitions being used against the US or US forces could just as easily be cited as an act of war by the US (in general anything which aids another belligerent can be called an act of war).

Obviously the diplomatic costs of destroying the Galileo system would be high, but there is *zero* chance of the EU calling it an act of war (if you think the US would find a war with the EU inconvenient, consider how much more inconvenient the EU would find it). On the other hand, it would be a one off cost. The US fights lots of wars, so the benefits of destroying the system would probably extend far beyond one particular war.

The term "act of war" is pretty much obsolete in modern international law

[sarcasm] You mean obsolete like the term "POW" because of the phony use of the term "enemy combatant"? [/sarcasm]

Even if the neo-cons wants international law to disappear, international law and its definition of war is more relevant today than ever because modern technology and trade makes almost any important question and problem international, and not just national.

True, but in the now-common usage shooting down satellites of a third party is an "act of armed aggression" (which is a well defined term, especially within NATO)

I think you have two different terms mixed up.

The term "act of agression" is used in the UN charter. What counts as an act of agression is far from clear, because the charter clearly excludes any action taken in self-defense, and that covers a great variety of actions (it would arguably cover the destruction of guidance satelites being used by a

but it goes against US law as well. This is a decidedly monopolistic move

While I'm in agreement that Europe should just tell the US government to fuck off in this instance, this statement is just stupid. A government is by definition a monopoly: it has to be a monopoly over some domain---typically territory---or it has no authority.

Unless you're prepared to declare all governments illegal---which of course makes no sense, since only in the presence of laws enforced by government can something be considered illegal---then antitrust measures cannot be interpreted as applying to governments.

The purpose of the US is not to be nice, or fair, but act as a sovereign nation that will do whatever it takes to gain every advantage for itself

True, but the worrying aspect of US foreign policy is that decisions are being made under the tacit assumption that America's allies today will at some point be enemies in the future. This is hardly a respectful manner in which to treat ones friends; imagine if your friends always had a gun pointed at you, so they could shoot you if an argument developed?

I'll just say that you don't want to be defended by a non paranoid military. They train hard and prepare for very bad things. History is littered with nations unable to defend themselves after their militaries became headed by political appointees rather than professional soldiers.

That said, the military does not make these policies. They raise concerns and the wise government officials you elected make policies.

If this European system doesn't offer more accuracy then it should be scrapped. There is no point to it beyond pure egotism.

Actually, thats the sort of comment I would expect fom an AC, not a full fledged member. Okay.. the entire point - which, if the article is correct, stands in danger of beeing undermined - is to provide a system that isn't dependent on the US. You may or may not agree, but there are people all over the world who don't want to be reliant on the goodwill of the US military when it comes to navigation. If you're trying to land a fully loaded 767 on a runway in less than perfect visibility, it sucks if the US military suddenly scrambles the GPS in suppoert of the pre-empative invation taking place next door...

There already exists a russian nav-sat system up there, but it's accurancy is equall to very early GPS at it's best. It's certainly good enought to find your way with, and probaly good enought for a terroristbuilt cruisemissile, but for most other uses we uses GPS for today it's not good enought by far. So there is a need to have a second, indepentent constelation of nav-sats hanging overhead.

I can understand the logic behind the US 'request'. However, it makes a lot more sence if the nations behind the european system built a simular capability to mess up the signals as there is in the GPS today. Then the US could, via proper diplomatic channels, ask for the system to be taken down over spesifics areas. Independence is retained, the legal consumer gets two systems to choose from, and Bobs your uncle.

As I said on another post, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world combined has equal military strength as the US.

Realisticly, that statement is laughably untrue. Sure, rest of the world combined may have numerical superiority in many areas, but no nation in history has the ability to project power like the United States.

For instance, the US fields 12 super carriers, complete with their escort battlegroups. In addition the US has about 50 Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines. Care to guess how many fleet carriers are fielded by nations other than the US? I believe the answer is one - France's Foch. Britain has a significant force of smaller carriers. Britain, Russia, and a few other countries have significant submarine forces, but none are considered a threat to the Los Angeles class submarines. Nothing travels the oceans without the permission of the United States.

Now that the US has clear naval superiority, the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, and Oceana are isolated. The US can now defeat in detail the forces of Canada and Latin America. Canada is fighting with American hardware and fine troops, but it is simply a numbers game. Latin America doesn't stand a chance.

At this point, the "world" powers have lost the ability to take the initiative. The US gets to choose when battles occur, where they occur, and when they end.

Oceana also has a fine military, but again loses on account of numbers. Africa is easy enough. Most of Europe has a decent military system. American hardware would eventually prevail, but with significant cost. China is the tough nut to crack just on their traditional willingness to suffer immense casualties.

Of course, the US doesn't even need to invade. The US can just place its fleet carriers off shore of each of these places - one at a time - bomb the infrastructure to hell, and leave. They can never project power accross our oceans if we don't let them have a shipyard or a working runway.

It boggles the mind, but consider the fact that the US military can apply ANY measure of power to ANY point on the planet. By that measure, no one else comes close.

Nothing travels the oceans without the permission of the United States.

Don't mix raw fire-power with control or influence. The US army can not even stop a donky with missiles in Baghdad. Do you think US can even dream of controlling the oceans?

In the end diplomacy and allies and friends are much more powerful than nukes. Just too bad people who don't understand this are in power in the US today (and showing with their actions the truth in the lack of power in unintelligent use of military power).

WW2 showed that a few subs can be devastating...only if the US manages to beat the encryption wil they have a chance to really rule the seas, and that's assuming that the EU subs don't just have roving orders (ie no contact for their mission duration). Thing is, the US hasn't had to really fight subs since ww2....in the cold war they might have practiced, but because it was a cold war the damage subs can do never crops up.

Why do I still pay taxes? I could as well pay directly to the US Government since they control our defense. Bah. Shame on the EU for letting the US walk straight over them!!!!.. what if the US get caught by a coup d'etat? Not as unlikely as many think.. they will immediately control the EU as well.

How this can be an illegal coup if the matter was decided by US supreme court ?You might not agree with the decision but this sort of ruling was exactly what was supposed to happen in a situation like this. You are simply bitter that your side lost....

I normally don't respond to AC's, just because 99% of the AC posts are trolls, but your post was free of spelling and grammatical errors, and appeared to be making an attempt at legitimate discourse. (Which I applaud! I wish more AC's would say something us

I'm sure this sounds like flame bait, but as someone has already pointed out the article itself constitutes a tasty treat for the consumption of flame.

The question here is why would you not want the military to be able to jam a GPS system? I'd like to see some cogent thought in that direction, rather than froth and hand wringing without substantiation.

Let me give one positive example. North Korea launches a galileo guided missle toward new york. The US military disables it. Any others?

The more accurate question is "why would you not want a *foreign* military to be able to jam a GPS system?"

Its all good and well assuming the EU and USA have similar goals and direction. But that is not always going to happen. There will be times in the future when Europe and America don't see eye to eye on things, and then the EU will be regretting decisions like this, and America will be laughing its head off.

Your argument is easily extended to allowing the military complete control over any and all aspects of life. Care to provide anything a bit more substantial?

I'll give you a start: North Korea launches an inertially guided missile toward New York.

I'll take a step farther and provide a realistic answer to your flaimbait: The "jamming" they're talking about doesn't effect 1 reciever. It affects an entire area, or, in the case of GPS, it affects the entire system. There's a real use for an accurate positioning system that can't be disabled on a whim - this is a real issue in the US. People want to use GPS for accurate positioning, but you can't rely on it. There was a great deal of concern during the invaision of Afghanistan (and again during the invasion of Iraq) over this, because there were systems in place that relied on accurate GPS (although they shouldn't) and they would fail if it was disabled. A civilian positioning sytem outside of military control wouldn't have this drawback.

Yes, except this would give the US Military capabilities over Gallieo, not the EU. Would the US agree to something similar? If the US should be able to jam the EU system, then surely it's perfectly fair for the EU to jam the US GPS system.

I wouldn't mind this provision as much, if the EU had the same rights as the US in this matter. In short, if the US Military wants the ability to shut off the EU's feed, then the EU member countries should have the ability to shut off the US feed. And how likely is it that the US would give France or Germany the ability to arbietarily decide to block their system?

It's more like the cops or the firemen showing up and telling you that unless you give them money, they're going to tell you to fuck off when you get robbed or when your establishment starts burning down. We're not going to invade the EU any time soon, but if someone else decides to take a shit on it, we might stand by for a while, as the EU gets pockmarked with craters, before we commit our forces. Unless, of course, y'all play ball. If you are convinced that you won't need us, then don't cave. Of course w

why would europeans(such as me) want to have a seperate system from the usa controlled satellite navigation system? i wonder why indeed! look, there's not too many military superpowers out there that go on invading foreign soil regularly, buying systems they have control over(killswitches if you may) to defend against them doesn't have much point(and while the world situation might change in few years the equipment will be used for decades, what if there's a coup in usa and they just start blatantly extorti

>>if they wanted, wouldnt the US military be able to jam them pretty easily no matter what frequencies they used?

no, because if you RTFA you'll notice that originally Galileo was to broadcast on the same frequency as GPS. That would mean that the US could not jam Galileo without also jamming GPS. By persuading Galileo to use a different frequency, the US will be able to jam its systems without affecting Galileo. (Though presumably it also means that people using Galileo will be able to jam GPS as wel

If what you mean by "jam" is "make service unavailable", yes, I would expect anybody with access to a powerful enough transmitter should be able to wash out GPS signals; at least locally.

I would wonder about the vulnerability of such a jammer to an antiradiation missile... but technically it's possible.

The downside of course is that by doing so, you render all your GPS recievers inoperative as well.

What you really want to do in a GPS context is something called "selective availibility" where you remove or downgrade the service from unauthenticated "public" receivers. Your stuff still works to an 8-figure grid, but the bad guys are lucky to get 4 figures, and it jumps around a lot.

In order to do that though, you need access to the source signal. You can't really do that from a "jammer".

The funny thing is... I'm not sure how important selective availibility is from a national security perspective.

Back in my recce days, I was required to know where I was at all times to 6 figures (100 metres) using nothing more than a map, a compass, and an odometer/pace count. It takes a lot of practice, but once you learn how, you can locate your position very accurately using terrain features and keeping accurate track of your route.

Same deal in an urban environment. "Meet me at the corner of Peel & St Catherines" is accurate to 100 metres. "Meet me at the nortwest corner of Peel & St Catherines" is accurate to about 5 metres.

Some environments can be a little more tricky - open desert, fog, out-of-date maps - but as long as you're talking about humans, accurate GPS is a "nice to have" not a "must have or cannot function"

The exception is GPS-guided precision munitions... which are not exactly common items amongst the bad guys.

If you look at where the UN and/or the US have gone in the last little while... The preferred weapon in Rwanda was a machete. Somallia, the AK-47. Bosnia/Serbia, the AK47, the land mine, and at least one Panther tank. Afganistan, AK47 and the RPG. Iraq, AK47, AK74, and the RPG.

Most of the bad guys are fighting with technology that was state of the art in 1945 - and even then, there's at least one 1945-era technology that hasn't made it into the hands of more than a few countries.

Terrorists? McVey used a truck full of fertillizer. The various groups blowing themselves up in the Middle East also use various chemical explosives. The big Al-Quaida innovation was to crash a big plane full of jet fuel into a building - and that'll never work again, because they changed the "how best to survive a hijacking" procedure so quickly that one of the planes IN THE AIR AT THE TIME didn't play ball.

In terms of places to spend political capital, this seems like a bad investment. Piss off your friends, do little harm to your enemies, and don't increase actual security by any measurable amount.

Galileo offers two services: one free, unencrypted service and one encrypted service that you have to pay for (higher precision, higher QoS). As far as I understand it, the encrypted signal can be jammed - this is what the Heise article is about. The talks (in January in Washington) are about jamming the unencrypted signal, according to Heise.

There is no reason why my tax money should be used to create a second system that is equal to an already available and (within the spec limits) working one. It's only sensible to spend the money if there is a big enough advantage.

Let us not be naive; there was no other real reason for Galileo than EU money into EU industry, the massively underestimated budgets (30 billion Euros only) is a big hint on that. Just launching the 24 satellites (and that assumes NO losses) would eat up about that amount of money, and then you have ground stations, staff, development and, best of all, maintenence.

The whole thing has been presentet as being too good to be true, and guess what: it should then not be assumed to be true. The US has developend, evolved and maintained the GPS for about 30 years and it has cost a bit more than what EU has guesstimated.

Secondly it was always rather hazy just who should control Galileo and just what limitations should be in place; it was always this unclear "someone" in "the approporitate commission", which should alert anyone who didn't fall out of a tree yesterday of big corruption ahead. Those still in their diapers might be surprised of jamming capability; the rest of us should ne be.

The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.

The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.

It has nothing to do with penis envy. As a European, I want our economy to be strong and united, and our defense force strong and not reliant on a third party. This is not because I envy the USA. It is because I live in Europe, and even if the USA says that it'll propect us in the case of a third world war, I'd much rather the EU had it's own capabilities because the USA has shown itself to be increasingly unilateral in its actions.

Some in the current administration in the USA have even been questioning the "loyalty" of the UK recently, and if the administration is capable of that then it's capable of stabbling its 'lesser' friends in the back.

Sorry, but that's just the way it feels to me at the moment. Hopefully something will change in the near future and we'll be able to feel that the USA is a great and friendly power again.

I wonder if the EU (or any other political/military entity) has the ability to jam US military GPS signals. If that is the case, then this only means that a balance of force exists. ie. I'll jam yours if you jam mine.

However, if the US GPS system is difficult (or impossible?) to jam.. then this is definitely a bad idea. However, the US is only doing what any bully would do. Make sure no one ever gets in a position where it wont have to take his/her/its bullying. (yes mod me down for calling the US a bully.. but frankly when the article says the US 'pressured' the EU into changing the systems specs, it really means 'bullied')

Does anyone know if the US system can be jammed? Is china working on a similar system?

Any signal can be jammed. Remember the flap when it was found out that Russian GPS jammers had been sold to Iraq?

The real issue isn't jamming but in scrambling/encoding. The idea is that you keep the system functioning but only for your benefit and not for the other side. A blanket jamming signal would deprive everyone of the system. An encrypted signal would mean that only the people with the right keys get the accurate information.

The previous argument that the European satellite navigation system Galileo would make Europeans independent from the US apparently starts to falter. As reported by the Tagesschau [tagesschau.de] (German TV news, trans. note), US armed forces can jam or artificially deteriorate the Galileo signal without consulting the Europeans, just as it is being done nowadays with GPS signals in times of crises.

But that is not sufficient for the Americans. They further demand that the unencrypted Galileo signal, which the system broadcasts during normal operation, should be artificially degraded or dampened, as well. Should the US come through with this demand, one of the major arguments for the European navigation system would fall, namely its higher precision compared to GPS. The pivotal round of negotiations for this is planned to take place in the American capital, Washington DC, in January.

The Galileo project is estimated to cost four billion Euro, and is supposed to become operational in 2008. Approximately 30 satellites are needed for the system. Recently, China and India have agreed to participate in the financing of the project with 500 million Euro combined. (uma/c't)

Sigh. I'm a US citizen who hated the Iraq war - we did it because we could, not because it was right.

But the EU couldn't have done it even if they had to. For their own internal social/political reasons EU countries spend much less on their military budgets than the US. While I respect their reasons, this leaves them militarily impotent. The EU didn't go into the former Yugoslavia until the US went in - and this was in the EU's neighborhood.

So if the EU backs down to the US on military matters such as Galileo it is the result their own decisions. The EU can do very little with the armed forces that they have, and they are unlikely for political reasons to change any time soon.

Indian officials said New Delhi would soon pick up a 350-million-dollar (300-million-euro) stake in the 3.2 billion euro European satellite project, meant to rival the Global Positioning System run by the US Defence Department.

Obviously most advanced tech countries can jam GPS signals. The EU can jam US GPS and and the US can jam Galileo. The point of dissent is the overlap of military frequencies. The EU wants to have their military frequency to partly overlap the US frequency so that the US cannot jam Galileo without degrading their own military signal quality (and vice versa). The US obviously would like to be able to jam Galileo without degrading their own military performance hence the request to move the Galileo military frequency.
Note that both India and China are participating financially at Galileo. China would certainly not pay a cent for a system under US control.

GPS/Galileo is a very powerful thing. It's not just useful in consumer electronic toys, but in real warfare situations. As it is now GPS is run by the U.S. military, so if someone tries to use it against us to guide their bombs we can easily screw over their guidance systems. Galileo, without these kinds of provisions, would've allowed the terrorists an alternative guidance method not easily jammable by us. These provisions are in the best interests of the U.S. - and also Europe, as they are our ally, and would also be susceptible to un-jammable Galileo-guided smart weapons. This is not a matter of free speech or freedom - this is about national defense, and the more control we have in matters of national defense, the better.

I just read the heise.de forums and the overall tone of the posters is disbelief and viscious anger. On the one hand they're angry that their politicians could bend over so easily and on the other they're hopping mad that the Americans would apply so much political pressure to do this.

I'll say this for you anks. There is literally no other country on earth that makes enemies and loses allies as well as your country is presently doing.

The way I figure, the E.U. is going to take some cues from the U.S. in dealings such as this. They'll nod amiably, appear to agree to the terms, then do whatever the hell they want, and if they're caught, they'll find some insignificant person within the organization and say it was his fault.

Why can't the Galileo frequencies be placed extremely near or inside the same frequency spectrum as GPS uses? The US will be free to jam Galileo all they want, but they will give up GPS precision(sp?) at the same time. It's a lose/lose situation, and everybody is happy.

Despite the present ill feeling between the US and Europe, let's not forget some basic facts.

a) It is the US Navy that makes world trade possible. American domination of the deep blue sea is ultimately the engine driving containerships everywhere.

We take free trade for granted but really free trade and free travel across the oceans is because the oceans are essentially American, and, under American rule, travel across the oceans are not taxed or restricted.

There's no guarantee that a patchwork of powers would do anything different or better. Certainly the Europeans historically were a lot worse.

Maybe the British could share with the Germans the same way they did in 1870-1914.

b) It is the US Army and US Air Force that provide stability in Europe. What happens in Europe if the US pulls out? How long do France and Germany remain cozy? Or, better still, what is Europe like if Germany has the bomb, or what about Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, etc?

Yes, the Europeans may not like Americans that much, and, Americans may not like the Europeans that much, but, fundamentally, the reasons and advantages of maintaining the transatlantic alliance remain sound.

Ultimately, the rising muslim and anti-semetic populations in europe, coupled with an overall decline in population, will demand an american break from that old continent.

could do a lot 'if they wanted to'. They could nuke Europe if they wanted to - it's not could to happen, but they could.
There is a very large difference between the EU allowing the US to jam and the US jamming against the wishes of the EU. We in Europe are getting quite uppity with the US, especially their foreign policy and breaking our new toy would not be looked on kindly.The EU collectively has a lot of clout with the US, for example the import tariffs imposed on steel imported to the US are going to be removed due to pressure brought by Europe. The dollar is currently at an all time low against the Euro and the lower it gets the more influence we have.

First off, you focus on the US, but the fact of the matter is anyone - from anarchists to terrorists to civil disobedience organizers - can choose to jam BOTH the GPS system AND Galileo.

Then you mention how much clout the EU has with the US now. Unfortunately, all commodities are still traded in US dollars and probably will be for the foreseeable future. The high Euro has also significantly hurt European exports and all of this in the midst of increasing European deficits contrary to EU constitution by Germany and France recently. All this in the midst of rampant inflation like 30% increases in the cost of damned table salt per year in Greece last year, for example, and the UK being resistant to joining and giving up the pound. In fact, Europe's economy is teetering on stagflation at this point. The higher the Euro becomes the more expensive European exports become and the more European countries get hurt.

The article is pretty heavily laden with propaganda, and your post skims over too many details. However, just like the meteoric rise of the Nasdaq and Dow three years ago, the meteoric rise of the Euro of over 20% in the span of eight to ten months indicates something - volatility, not strength.

for example the import tariffs imposed on steel imported to the US are going to be removed due to pressure brought by Europe.

Actually most of the pressure has come from primary swing vote states in the US where industries employing steel are prominant. There has been a huge backlash in the industrial Midwest (Michigan, Ohio) by small and large companies that have had to cut employees or fold because the price of metal has gone up. It seems Bush forgot the cardinal rule for global economy: penalize the local few (US steel makers) for the benefit of the majority (consumers, steel end users). Tariffs penalize everybody.

And since the economy is #1 on the Presidential circuit, this hasn't floated too well. The Democrats have rolled out ads pointing out the fact that GWB is the first president since Herbert Hoover to run a positive economy that has lost jobs.

GPS signals are jammable now. Iraq actually tried it during the late fracas betweeen their military and the US military. The US military could also turn selective availabiliy back on in the GPS system, but that was a demonstrably futile "feature." Engineers had worked out methods for post-processing GPS and real-time differential correction before the first GPS satellite was launched. Besides, I doubt there are such things as un-jammable radio transmissions. They would require tremendous signal strengt

Currently the US imports much more than it exports. Having the dollar devaluate in relation to the Euro it means you will have to pay more to get the same amount of imports.
So it will have a positive effect of making American products more competitive as far as price is concerned and therefore increase exports in the long run.

In other words you make the Dollar devaluation sound like it is most certainly a good thing. It depends on the situation, and the current US situation tells us that for now it is a BAD thing.

but US is running at a defecit i.e. is importing more than they're exporting. Dollar is slipping against the Euro, the same dollar is bringing in less and less 'product'. You could increase your deficit and bring more stuff in which is ultimately going to end in disaster as more and more dollars bring in less and less, or reverse the deficit by exporting more product (the sensible option). To export your products you need people to buy them, you don't want your main customer (Europe) imposing great big embargoes, restrictive taxes etc. That's why you should want to keep them happy. The EU knows it's in a strong position and (if we ever stop bickering with each other) will use this.

With the exception of agriculture and services, the US usually runs a deficit globally. This has been going on since the 50's. The dollar is extremely cyclical, more so after the early 70's when it was completely taken off of any precious metal standard.

Sorry, but you need to get yourself back to a econ 101 class, there are so many things wrong I can't believe it's modded to positive territory.

The dollar is *intentionally* down compared to the Euro. Because the dollar is down the amount of imports into the US is down. If a product in the US costs less to create (because of a weaker dollar) than it does to make it somewhere else and ship it in, why buy the imported product? By devaluing the dollar it makes everybody else's product more expensive in the

That might sound straight to you, but from over here it seems that you only worry about these problems _after_ someone's shat on your doorstep, so to speak.

Take terrorism. In England people were murdered for decades by IRA terrorists funded in no small part by Americans. Suddenly the Twin Towers are attacked and terrorism is the new world evil and the IRA funding via NorAid is stopped.

That might sound straight to you, but from over here it seems that you only worry about these problems _after_ someone's shat on your doorstep, so to speak.

First, when I last checked, Somailia and Bosnia are damned far from anything resembling our doorstep or national interests. Second, when something does come to our doorstep, you can be sure we will take care of it, as that's called self-preservation. The French aside, most nations do have an instinct of self-preservation.

The US could shoot the entire system out of the skies if it wanted. That doesn't make it responsible, amenable to good relations or the best policy.You'd hope that democratic nations would behave in a sensible way towards each other.

If they put the system in orbit and the only way to deny its use to an enemy were to shoot it out of the skies, then that would be what would happen.

Not even Bush would be crazy enough to start a war against the EU. Shooting down EU satellites would be a declaration of war. Looking how much problems the mighty US army has with a 3rd world country like Iraq they should hessiate before making war with strong NATO allies. Of course, one could always nuke the EU, but both France and UK have nuclear weapons of their own.

This is a compromise like all compromises, it probably serves some purpose for both parties. The US military like to believe that they can do what they want and the EU don't like the thought that rouge states can take advantage of their technology.

On the other hand, it is not for sure that this is a final deal, since there are strong forces in the EU who do not want rogue elements in Pentagon or unpredictable presidents to control the safty of air traffic to mention one reason to have a trusted Galileo.

If you can selectively degrade it simply by flipping a switch that give the EU a bargaining chip in negotiations with the US (ie, we can make this whole galileo-jamming bit real easy for you if you only change policy xyz).

The funny thing is that in the last three armed conflicts in which the US has taken part (Iraq I, Balkans, Iraq II) the US Space Command has bent on every effort to increase the accuracy of the GPS system. During Iraq II they took the risk of degrading the signal in the rest of the world so they could concentrate more satellites over Iraq, which increased both diversity and accuracy.

As another poster said, IF the US wanted, they could nuke Europe. Of course, IF Europe saw the US as that kind of threat, they COULD switch from producing cruise ships, fancy automobiles and high-end electronic schnick-schnacks to producing fancy weapons instead. The sole reason Europe spends just a fraction of the money the US does on defence R&D is because it normally doesn't have to. If it felt it HAD to, the US wouldn't have much of a leg up on Europe anymore in that respect. As European nations have demonstrated plentifully in other areas (e.g. healthcare, public works), they are quite capable of appropriating gargantuan amounts of money, which could then be channelled to more destructive uses.

If Europe started a massive military R&D push today, they could take advantage of the huge advances and cost reductions in digital electronics since the 70s and 80s, when a lot of the current US stock of weapons was developed. Cruise and intelligent anti-aircraft missiles with current technology could be produced for a fraction of the cost, you wouldn't event need equivalents to the F-22 or anything. Stealth is only as good as the next generation of DSP algorithms and chips. The principles of mass production aren't quite the novelty they were during WWII when the US were the only ones churning out hardware on a huge scale.

This is all assuming all-out, take-no-prisoners war between Western nations, which given the economic realities of today is highly unlikely, almost ridiculous--as is the OP'ers flamboyant and boisterous statement.

It's about permission. Sure, the US could jam the EU system, but this is about talks to give the US permission to do so. There's quite a big difference.

For instance, if the EU has a 9/11 terrorist suspect, then the US can ask them nicely to export said terrorism to the US for trial. Or the US could, without any warning, drop a military taskforce into the EU and kidnap the suspect. Obviously, the latter isn't preferable to the former.

These talks are about giving the US permission to shut down the EU system whenever it wants. That's not a good thing.

Don't blame the US, blame the fucking terrorists who created the climate.

And who created the terrorists? Why, the good 'ol USA. The people that brought you Saddam Hussain (ex-CIA assassin and short-time puppet ruler of Iraq), the fantasy nation of Israel, many fun-time bombings by the IRA, the Cuban missile crisis (laugh and laugh again as the US nearly destrys the world by objecting to Russia having a handful of missiles as close to America as America's hundreds of warheads are to Russia), frollics in Vie

Firstly, I'm not sure how easy it is to jam such a system in a specific area without affecting a broader base, moresoover in a way that can't be done already. Also, the whole "what about the terrorists" arguement has become as stale as "what about the children." Do you think that the EU should bow to the US and degrade a service provided to everyone on the off possibility that the US might need to disrupt it going after a particular individual/group?

If the EU is in control of said system in the first place... and they're cooperating with the US, why not just let them do it?